Chris Froome is happy to be in the privileged position of race leader as the Tour de France stops for its first rest day.

 

With nine stages complete Froome holds the yellow jersey with a lead of 12 seconds at the top of the general classification. On top of that a strong opening phase of the race from Team Sky has allowed the Brit to put varying degrees of time into all of his key rivals.

 

Highly publicised as being difficult and unpredictable due to the nature of the terrain and stages, with the dust now settled the first week of the Tour could barely have gone better for Froome and his team-mates.

 

Sitting down with the press in Pau, Froome admitted as much. "Coming into this race there was a lot of last year still in the back of my mind," he said. "This first week was really one of the biggest concerns. The big thing was not to lose any time to the contenders, but to already be in this position, in yellow, and to have gained quite substantial amounts of time on a lot of my big rivals - this is a dream scenario at the moment and I really just have my team to thank for that. They've carried me through these first nine days in spectacular fashion. They've been there every step of the way through the cobbles, the cross-winds and the rain. All these one-day classics. I really couldn't be in a better position as we are right now on the first rest day."

 

 

There is little respite for the peloton with the action resuming on Tuesday, not with a flat transitional stage, but the first foray into the Pyreenees and a summit finish at La Pierre-Saint-Martin.

 

On the test ahead Froome continued: "It's quite a key stage tomorrow. It's not as hard as other mountain days that we've got coming up. But it is the first mountain-top finish and everyone's going to be looking at this as a gauge as to how we're going to go over the next two weeks. It's a very important stage but I'm very grateful to be in the position that I'm in now not trying to make up time on anyone else. I've got the position that I can just ride towards the front of the race and focus on other GC contenders now to put in their attacks, put in their moves and show their card."

 

 

Of those rivals, Froome sits 12 seconds ahead of closest challenger Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing), 1:03 ahead of Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), with 1:59 and 2:22 on Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) respectively.

 

Despite that Froome is under no illusions that the mountains hold the key to race victory. With attacks certain to follow, Froome ran the rule of over rivals ahead of what should be a thrilling battle in first the Pyrenees, followed by the Alps.

 

"I wouldn't say it's impossible to change things at this point. It's a long race and there's a long way to go. We haven't even hit the mountains yet. Nairo Quintana for example I expect him to start going the other way now and start trying to gain time  but if you’re one of those big GC contenders and you’re losing time on an almost daily basis, it has to be quite a negative thing within the team and morale can’t be good.

 

“I think lot of people expected Nibali to make up a lot of time on the other rivals in this first week, as opposed to Quintana where we expected him to make time in the mountains. So I expect Quintana will be the person to look out for in this part in the race. I’m in an extremely privileged position.

 

"It’s definitely not a surprise to me that Tejay is riding as well as he is. I rode against him in the Dauphine and he was very impressive there. There was only a very narrow margin between us both at the Dauphine, and I do expect him to be up there. As it stands at the moment, he is my biggest threat.

 

 

Another rider who always remains dangerous in the mountains is Contador. "Alberto is definitely a guy who races on other people’s weaknesses and waits for a moment where you’re exposed and he will take full advantage of that," Froome explained. "Even though he has already lost a small amount of time, he is definitely someone who you can’t let get up the road. You have got to give him that kind of respect because he has won so many grand tours in the past.

 

“It’s definitely useful being able to, on the road, bounce ideas off guys like Richie (Porte) and Nico (Roche). They have ridden with Alberto and they potentially know how the team works, what they are thinking, what they are planning, and that comes in handy when we need to decide what to do out on the road.

 

“Now it’s up to other teams to put the pressure on us. This is the hard part of the race now. This is where all the action is going to be happening. This is where we are going to see who has done their homework, who has got what in the mountains. This is where the real race for yellow starts."

 

This time around Froome has the benefit of having seen it all before as leader of the Tour. After an impressive victory and becoming only the second ever Brit to win the race in 2013, the 30 year old feels his form and mentality is different this time around.

 

"I think I'm in quite a different position to how I was two years ago. I came into the race extremely ready two years ago. I'd won pretty much every race building up to the Tour. I did feel as if once I'd got past the half-way mark in the 2013 Tour I was just hanging on to the finish. Whereas this year I feel as if I've come in a lot fresher, more mentally prepared, and I feel as if I'm getting stronger in this year's race.

 

"I think we're just going to have to look on a daily basis and just evaluate which teams are making the race, who is trying to get up the road and take it from there. For sure if the opportunity is there to take more time of course I'll go for it. But I'm in an extremely privileged position at the moment and I wouldn't want to jeopardise that."